Since we’re kicking off week two of March Madness tonight, it seems an apt time to mention that everyone and their moms have a bracket-styled contest in which you can witness the wonders of Web 2.0 first hand by voting on some arbitrary matchups.
Ball Don’t Lie is rocking its NBA Bedlam Tournament, which has thus far featured inspiring contests like “Spurs Beards vs. Luis Scola’s Hair,” “Baller-in-Chief [Obama] vs. Marbury’s Head Tattoo” and “Inside the NBA vs. NBA TV Gametime.” The fact that both Steph and GP/CWebb are both not only losing but getting blown out like Chattanooga just further proves my theory that I’m watching an entirely different NBA than most people who may theoretically be reading this sentence.
Zoner Sports has it’s own version of Madness going on, and this one actually includes me somehow. Their “Best Sports Blog Names Tourney” features an array of well-known sports sites like Kissing Suzy Kolber, The Sports Hernia and Mr. Irrelevent in addition to the Both Teamsters Union’s own Both Teams Played Hard. Despite the #12 seed I was given, we mounted a first-round upset over some site called “Pittsburgh Sports and Mini-Ponies” and now look poised to take down #2 seed “Five Ounces of Pain” to advance yet again. Thanks for the votes, voters. I play solely for stats not championships, so I can’t say I really care all that much about winning this thing. But for poetry’s sake, it would be kind of dope to see an Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Sheedtastic Supremacy in the Final Four, pinning me against Ball Don’t Lie. And, yes, if that does occur, I will guaranSheed victory. Vote early and vote often, Both Teamsters.
In vagina-ier news, NBA.com has its “Dance Team Bracket,” where you can vote on which NBA franchise has the best team of future strippers dancers. (via Heels on Hardwood)
Conversely, our girl ticktock6 over at Hornet’s Hype is running the “First Annual NBA Hot Baller Tournament,” where I presume the ladies and the gays can debate beefcake matchups like Popeye Jones vs. Tyronne Hill.
I think we all know who would walk away with the Belt of Sheedtastic Supremacy.
Known Associates:
Barack,
CWebb,
Inside the NBA,
Luis Scola,
March Madness 2009,
Popeye Jones,
Spurs,
Starbury,
The Glove,
Tuesday Fan Night,
Tyronne Hill
His upcoming sabbatical is the result of his recent DUI arrest and has been reported as “a minimum of several weeks,” which is obviously horrible news for Inside the NBA fans. The only silver lining here is that a month without Sir Charles won’t be quite as difficult to take this year as it normally would be since we at least have Tuesday Fan Night over on NBA TV as a fill-in.
No word on who will fill-in for Barkley, but I bet CWebb will be involved on a few occasions — and it will at least be interesting to see how Webber and Kenny can run things without Barkley around.
Regardless, hurry back, Charles.
UPDATE: The T-Mobile campaign featuring Charles has been at least postponed and, me thinks, they may drop the Chuckster altogether. It’s their company so whatever, but I’m really perplexed as to why this whole thing is such a big deal. Aren’t outrageous and sophmoric antics half the reason why he was hired in the first place? (via FanHouse)
Known Associates:
Chuckster,
CWebb,
Inside the NBA,
Kenny the Jet,
Tuesday Fan Night
Some of you don’t have NBA TV. And for that, I’m truly sorry.
Because Tuesday Fan Night has now become the best series on television, as Gary Payton and Chris Webber (and even to my complete shock and awe, Ahmad Rashad at times) have crafted the most entertaining show these eyes have seen for some time (since Always Sunny in Philadelphia concluded its latest season probably for those of you not into unspecified generalizations).
Last night, I flipped over there just mainly to confirm the Hornets/Lakers tip-off time, but five minutes later it had become evident that none of the horrible games that were on could possibly be better than The Glove and CWebb show. Mostly, GP spends his time yelling out relative non sequiturs in a high-pitched voice and repeating them incessantly for the next five seconds and Webber enjoys pointing and mocking Ahmad while spending exactly none of his time looking near the camera.
That probably sounds horrible. But it’s actually the exact opposite.
Let’s go to the tape.
Borrowing a strategy from Payton’s player of the week selection, the best segment last night was a 1A and 1B tie between the Joe Johnson “in the grocery store people don’t know who I am” bit and the Top 10 Plays of the Week viewing, during which they unleash the fantastic “Hueh HUEH hueh” (that’s my spelling of their horrible French stereotype impersonation of Tony Parker) about a half dozen times and a reaction to the amazing Pau Gasol-led fastbreak that can only be described as soul-pleasing.
In addition to the high comedy, both guys clearly know what they’re talking about when it comes to hoops so they do also provide a poor man’s version of the astute, unique analysis that you get from Kenny and Chuck on Inside the NBA as well. This isn’t the best representation of that, but here is their interview with CP3 last night where even GP gets into serious mode and you can see Webber ask one of his signature, conversationally insightful questions (though he does even like to repeat himself on those quite a bit). Another example is GP’s throwaway line last night about how he thinks Andre Miller is the best PG in the East — something to which I was like “Really??” at first, then was like “Yeah, probably could be if you don’t fall for the young’n hype of Devin, Rondo, etc.”
(Although entirely unrelated to this Tuesday Fan Night discussion, Kevin Pelton of Basketball Prospectus had a notably fantastic breakdown of his “Best Point Guards of the East” yesterday, in which he lists Rondo, Devin and Jameer. Better still is that this is only his “Part I” so we’re likely to get even more in-depth stat stuff from him on these guys shortly. I’ll keep ya posted.)
In short, you need to be watching these guys. And if you don’t have NBA TV, just remember to check the Tuesday Fan Night videos on NBA.com every Wednesday morning. (And if you still haven’t already had enough of yesterday’s links for some reason, here’s their discussion on LeBron’s crab dribble, an interview with Ewing Senior and Junior and GP picking “his team” the Hornets to win last night)
Known Associates:
Ahmad Rashad,
CP3,
CWebb,
Ewing,
Inside the NBA,
Patrick Ewing Jr.,
Pau Gasol,
The Glove,
Tuesday Fan Night
